Editorial: No point in lecturing Premier Lee

In diplomacy, choosing what not to say is as important as speaking your mind. Airing sensitive issues across the coffee table and through the little criss-crossed flags is an art. When Prime Minister Helen Clark decided this week not to challenge her visiting Singaporean counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, over the charging of one of that country's opposition party leaders for speaking in public without a permit, it was nothing new. Government leaders routinely hold their tongues when meeting one another, particularly regarding domestic politics, to avoid an unholy free-for-all during bilateral or multilateral gatherings.

In this case, critics of Singapore urged Helen Clark to express New Zealand's opposition to the curtailment of free speech, given its fundamental importance to a civilised society. The prosecution of Chee Soon Juan is certainly unpalatable. It is the latest illustration of the constraints on political freedom in the city state. Dr Chee and past Opposition figures have found themselves sued for defamation by Government members, including Lee Hsien Loong's father, Lee Kuan Yew. Dr Chee and his predecessors have been sufficiently brave or reckless or both to be found wanting by Singapore's stringent legislation, allowing court action to be taken against them for breaking the law.

The sophistication of Singapore's political control is in its adherence to the rule of law. Actions against opposition leaders or any other irritants to the ruling People's Action Party - through defamation suits, criminal prosecutions or tax investigations - can be defended by pointing to their having broken statutes. The laws themselves, of course, are the real issue, not the individual breaches.

Singapore's brief history is one in which Lee Kuan Yew stared down communism, communalism, Malay nationalism and challenges from allcomers to forge a country which put economic and social cohesion ahead of so-called Western concepts of freedom. It is in this context - community first, personal rights second - that the PAP has delivered controlled economic growth and won every election, including all but two seats in the latest vote for Parliament last month.

Singapore's leaders are used to criticism from abroad of their limited acceptance of some human rights. They are rehearsed in taking on the critics. Lee Hsien Loong seemed completely unmoved by New Zealand journalists' questions about Dr Chee's fate. Not only had Dr Chee broken the law but he was a liar, a cheat and deceitful to boot. Helen Clark would have known the score, and decided no useful purpose would be served by lecturing Mr Lee over the teacups. She opens herself and her Government to charges that courting Singapore's trade and economic favour takes precedence over arguing for universal values of freedom.

But there would have been no gain for Dr Chee or New Zealand had she chosen to speak out. It does not help that the police here have just successfully prosecuted a political critic of Helen Clark for sedition, a law applied as misguidedly as when Singapore wheels out its prohibition on public speaking.

No country is beyond criticism from abroad. A case could be made for symbolic protests by our Prime Minister at every meeting with United States officials over, say, Guantanamo or the Patriot Act. Or a chiding for John Howard over the asylum seekers' detention camps.

The Prime Minister's explanation of why she did not speak up contained mixed messages. First, she said Foreign Affairs officials had not recommended that she raise the Chee case, yet few observers imagine that she takes her lead only from bureaucrats. Later she conceded that the issue did not reach the threshold which she applies on human rights. It was not an arbitrary arrest and detention or "gross abuse". That is nearer the point. To be effective in international relations, you have to pick your battles.